Introduce yourself here!

From one futures.io (formerly BMT) newbie to another welcome Lachiner. After a year of hard work creating a strategy I came back to the basics, MA crossovers and other basic indicators. The more recent zero lag and low lag MA's have helped a lot. Before I started trading live I had at least three thousand hours of chart time, in my opinion this is a must, so no miracle here just old fashioned hard work. I trade the ES so other basics, don't trade the open or when news stories are breaking or lunch time in NYC. Good luck.

First email from the Mod indicated that I needed to introduce myself in this thread. I'll go by the UID of JetTrader, while I'm here. Used to trade equity options (years ago) until I discovered the more normalized data that the major currency markets have. A technical trader by nature and a fundamental trader by default - all trading involves a bit of both at the same time.

I trade from a prototype system that I developed years ago. I'm now adding new technical inputs to the system to give me an additional edge. The prototype was built in Excel and involves custom algorithms based mostly on the delta between price points in a stream of OHLC data. So, my system is less about traditional average based indicators, and more about a fairly unique way of looking at OHLC market data.

The system is heavily based on unique pattern recognition algorithms and what I call, Mode Shapes. Given the size and scale of the prototype, it is not possible to even do the system justice by attempting to describe it in any level of detail, as it has many layers and was developed over a long period of time (more like, evolved over time). It is a fully integrated trading system with many moving parts at various levels of developmental maturity, so there is no simple way to talk or write about it.

All of the decision support data for trade execution, is driven up through the system's Engine, Synthesizer and iTradePanel (GUI), from its Real-Time Database. I get the data from MT4 and then bring it into Excel in real-time using a simple .mq4 file (or, near real-time). From there, the Engine generates and drives all of the indicator output to the Synthesizer, which is responsible for aggregation, filtration, signal optimization and trade profile (details about the position about to be executed) generation. The iTradePanel is the graphical user interface that simply links to the Synthesizer and displays a tactical presentation of the market situation and the various trade profiles available at any given point in time. I then switch to my trading platform to manually execute my trades.

The JetTrader is what I call FADEC type system. FADEC, actually stands for Full Authority Digital Engine Control and it is a well known system in general aviation - primarily (among other things) for fuel management using a computer to optimized engine performance and to reduce pilot workloads. So, I stole the acronym and changed the "E" to "I." Thus, JetTrader is a FADIC system: Full Authority Digital Indicator Control. The principle is conceptually the same. Aircraft need fuel to operate and function. Trading Systems need data to operate and function. The better you manage your fuel while operating your aircraft, the more efficient your flight will be. Likewise, the better you manage market data while conducing trading operations, the more efficient your trades will be. FADIC, is just a way to more efficiently optimize trading, by analyzing and recognizing the optimal trade profile, across a range of possible trade profiles.

The next version of the system will require a move into the object oriented, or standard .Net programing environment, as I've tapped the limits of what Excel can do using a simple flat-file (two dimensional) database. Whether that will be C++, Java, VC, or standard C-Sharp, or VB, I'm not absolutely sure about yet, but I do know that a move into a real programing environment will be required to bring the system to its fullest potential.

This is about as much as I can explain with respect to the system. I post this here in my introduction, instead of inside other parts of the forum, to give an example of why it would be fairly impossible to discuss in detail in other parts of the forum. The system is proprietary and not for sale. I am not a fund manager, nor am I seeking to manage the funds of others. I manage my own private fund and that keeps me busy enough. This is not a solicitation, sale or marketing effort on by behalf, or on the behalf of any one else. I am not a guru, teacher, instructor, or saint of all things trading.

Obviously, trade at your own risk and most importantly, trade based upon ONLY that which you know about the markets through your own research, studies, analytics. empirical validation, testing and verification.

Retired for health reasons. I am trying to find a system that will give me confidence to trade my very limited resourses. Tried trading rooms, but feel they do not work very well, and teach me little. Currently working on Ninja, and am thinking of going with Ninja Warehouse products. Hope this site helps, and I can contribute.

I am new to futures trading and was "lead" here by my limited capital, and my simultaneous sense of desperation and hope to be a successful trader. I was daytrading equities for about a year with little success. I educated myself well, understand trading theories and for the most part traded well when not dealing with my emotions. My emotions, as most traders emtions, are connected to my limited capital. Because I was so concerned about paying my bills and staying above the $25,000 minimum I was concentrating on not losing money instead of conentrating on the trade. I am hoping and believe that without the daytrading capital requirement restrictions I will be more willing to take (managed) risks and trade my plan and not concentrate on money. I consider myslef a newbie because of my lack of experience trading futures. I got into a pretty good routine with charting analysis with equities and feeel I was pretty good at it. But when you get into something new you feel like a fish out of water. I know some of my skills and experience will be transferable. I am looking for any help I can get in learning how to trade the futures markets, particularly the ES. I am sure there are some things I can contribure also as we are all students and never stop learning. I am looking forward to being a good student, and productive participant in this forum.

Been reading this forum here and there for some months, don't remember how I found it, I think googling while I was coding strategies on NT, now that I'm "elite" I want to say hello

I'm 28 and I spent the last 10 years of my life coding for two software companies here in Barcelona, Spain where I come from (I had luck to start early).

My first approach to trading was back in late 2007, I had to do some currency exchange and I really wanted to understand why the euro, usd and yen were moving every day (I have this problem I want to understand everything I don't) so back home in 2008 I went to a multiple days intensive cheap webinar to get started about stock exchange here in Spain just to, after that, learn more about it on internet (I'm a self-taught person).

I started this roller coaster on a simulated account trading ES and currencies for two years, and then started in stocks. I did that just to get a feeling with real money, trading just little by little on stocks. I opened an account with money that I don't cared to blow up, to then realize that I had too mental struggling to hold a position for more than 30 seconds, even with a ridiculous amount stop. I exited too early, no matter if I was on profits or loss, I just wanted to avoid the mind pain.

I had no idea why this fear were happening to me, the money on my broker account were and is money that I can afford to loose, the worst case scenario were and is nothing dramatic. So I'd worked on it and then moved back to the futures and struggled again. By this time I moved from QuoteTracker to NinjaTrader and started to code some strategies with the idea to find an edge to trade ES (I didn't care about currencies that time) and get more comfortable to myself and my mind, never with the idea to autotrade it. I think that I learned more backtesting and coding strategies than trading by itself, I think it multiplies a lot your experience to the markets because you have to think about money management and how indicators and levels work, at least I gained confidence to trade again and gained confidence to hold a position beyond a minute .

My best trades then, were in December 2010 and January 2011 but I lost trust in ES because it changed a lot and moved to 6E. In fact, I was coding a strategy for it from Dec 2010, a really simple one but a nice one. I'm really happy from that decision I took then.

As I said, I'm on a roller coaster (near breakeven forever, below, above, below, etc), but today I can say that I do what I have to do, I never hesitate to enter, I never hesitate to trail stops (manually cause I'm a trend follower), and I never hesitate to exit. I do exactly what I've planned to do, my feeling is that now I'm on the next level of trading and, with more than 200 trades back with real money, I'm like a computer because I know when, how and why and then execute it and stick to my rules 100% efficiently, I swear.

Btw, I never follow others advises NEVER, but I learned from other traders. I'm too skeptical of everybody to follow others, and by the other hand I need to understand the strategy very well, so I prefer to create them.

Thanks Mike for this forum, the best one.

Sorry if wrong spelling/grammar here and there, I'm self-taught in English too, in fact, trading really improved my english cause I made some friends from the US, plus forums, chatrooms, etc. and here I'm writing some of my story.

Hi everyone, I am Hermes Trismegistus, from Madrid. I have a bit of experience trading for the medium-long term based on macroeconomic tendencies. It seems I will not get rich from it but it feels good to make money by being right about where things are going.

My biggest success was buying gold back in 2003. I wish I had bought more of it , I have also made a bit of money long term with stocks, but I would like to learn a bit more about what it seems to me like a gambling house in the short term. At the moment futures and warrants sound like an on line version of the Russian roulette to me.

Been reading this forum here and there for some months, don't remember how I found it, I think googling while I was coding strategies on NT, now that I'm "elite" I want to say hello

Great story. Nice road map. I'm 200 trades behind you and have the similar personality. I have clued in a few days ago, this is going to be a big personal discovery time, good and bad. Until i listened to Roger's presentation, i was scared to death, hehe. Now i'm a little less so.